


A Nanny? In MY Summoning Circle?

by pukner



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-28 01:51:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19802275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukner/pseuds/pukner
Summary: (it's more likely than you think)Warlock "Lockie" Dowling summons a demon.Or, he buys a book off a suspiciously familiar bookseller and is convinced into demon summoning.It goes about as well as you'd expect.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please be gentle I have not written a fic in 500000000 years.

Lockie Dowling does not decide to summon a demon. Really. These things just happen to him.

His earliest memory is his Nanny singing to him about fire and death, and the infinite power held in his fragile hands. He was born in a convent full of what had turned out to be _satanic nuns._ His real legal given name is _Warlock_. 

He feels, on days where things are particularly jarring--like when he figured out, aged nine, that not everyone refers to all living things as _brother_ or _sister---_ that he's the setup for a joke without a punchline.

He used to dream of crushing people with the heel of his boot.

These things just happen to him.

Lockie Dowling doesn't decide to summon a demon, but it happens anyway. These things often do, and he's more or less learned how to roll with it, carrying all the wry disdain of a man who's seen someone accidentally kill the begonias and discreetly will them back to life one time.

Some context, perhaps, is in order.

* * *

The bell above the door rings, and the proprietor of A. Z. Fell & Co. immediately rears up, looking thunderous. 

The young man that stumbles in is frantic, disheveled, and wearing an odd combination of clothes---what appears to be a luxurious fur coat, glossy and sable, over a ratty, sweat-stained white shirt and a pair of absurdly patterned shorts, his eyes hidden by round, mirrored sunglasses.

He skitters in and slams the door shut, bypassing the man working up to a frosty glower that could reliably be called Vengeful, and settles in to stare at a bookshelf.

"Excuse me," says Aziraphale, who had been having a perfectly lovely time rearranging his first editions of Oscar Wilde's works, "How may I help you?"

He startles, and looks down at the looming angel with a hunted expression in his eyes, visible only because his glasses are sliding down his nose. It's a strange sight, a man being loomed over by a person whose curly head barely clears his shoulder, but here we are.

The young man opens his mouth, and says, in a barely comprehensible rush, "I'm gonna be straight with you, I'm only here to hide from my ex because I just saw him from across the street, and I'm honestly too hungover to deal with looking at him--actually, it's pretty debatable how sober I am, but I'm really sorry, I'll leave soon. Also? I'm lost."

This is around the time that Aziraphale would have softened, because many people have sought refuge in his bookshop--he isn't quite certain why, but human hindbrains read this place as _safe_ , and he doesn't mind them coming in and staying for a few hours, as long as they don't actually try to purchase anything. He might have sat the boy down, or offered him some tea, or asked him gently about this ex of his, but, well.

The boy's sunglasses are dangling precariously off the tip of his nose, and this leaves Aziraphale with the horrifying weight of recognition. The years have changed him, of course--he is _much, much_ taller, and there is stubble on his chin and he's got acne scars littered over his cheeks, but his hair is roughly the same--far too long to be proper--and, well.

When you essentially raise a boy for eleven years of his life, you more or less have his face imprinted onto you. Warlock Dowling could have been wearing a paper bag on his head, and Aziraphale is reasonably sure he'd have recognised him.

So, thrown off his rhythm as he is, Aziraphale only nods, and Warlock seems to relax a little. 

"Thanks," he says, and looks back at the bookshelf, seemingly unaware that Aziraphale is having what might be a Small Crisis. 

Unbeknownst to Aziraphale, who is quite busy spiralling down a thought pile that is largely a number of exclamation marks, born of the fact that he'd honestly never expected to see the Little Antichrist That Wasn't again, Lockie Dowling is thinking that he should probably buy something so that the strange man will stop looking at him with wide watery blue eyes that are bordering on _stricken._

"Uh, how much is that one for?" he says awkwardly, pointing at a book at random.

Aziraphale stares for a moment, and it's a testament to how thrown he is that he actually tells him the price.

"I'll take it," says the boy whose skinned knees Aziraphale once miracled better with soft touches.

"Oh--'course," says Aziraphale, dazed, accent slipping into something he hadn't used in a good while, "I'll do that righ' away, m'boy."

He rings up the purchase--the _purchase_ \---right away, and watches with bemusement as the boy pokes his head out of the shop gingerly, holding the book to his chest. He turns and grins at him, and waves goodbye.

And then he's gone.

* * *

Aziraphale sits there for a few minutes, thinking of literally any other way he could have reacted. He doesn't quite know how to feel.

Lockie, meanwhile, is so relieved that he successfully avoided Oliver Stevens--- a boy he had dated for a summer when he was fifteen and back in England for the holiday and ghosted immediately after because he had no idea how to handle human feelings---that he only registers what happened once he's walked back to his flat.

This takes quite a while, because he's still new to Soho, and quite hungover, and his phone has run out of charge so he can't even check for the directions back to his flatshare--but he eventually ends up wobbling through his door and looking down at his purchase and realizing that:

1) The man from that bookshop earlier was frighteningly familiar. Not immediately, but there was a second where his accent slipped into something much more rural, and he couldn't quite place it,

2) the book he just bought is a leather-bound number, with the words _DEVILS AND DEMONS AND OTHER DASTARDLY BEINGS, VOLUME IV; SUMMONINGS AND COMMUNICATION_ embossed in gold _, and_

3) he just paid _a hundred_ _pounds_ for a book to get out of an awkward situation.

...sounds about right.

* * *

"---and I just _stared_ at him, Crowley!" Aziraphale is saying, eyes wide and wringing his hands, distraught.

"I mean," says Crowley, valiantly attempting to not feel the emotions that he is feeling, "he was alright, wasn't he? Not in trouble or anything?"

"Well, he mentioned an, ah--an ex--"

"Yeah, no, angel, I meant-- _real_ trouble?"

"No," Aziraphale mumbles, wilting slightly, "but he did look a bit. Rumpled. And he was wearing the most absurd coat, and these silly sunglasses---I bet that's your influence all over, my dear!"

Crowley tries not to feel any pride, at that. He does not succeed. 

* * *

"You're telling me," says Omar, in clear disbelief, "that old man Fell actually _sold_ you something?" 

"...you know this guy?" 

The bundle of blankets and sheets on Omar's lap shifts, and parts wide enough to reveal Lockie's other roommate, who says, stuffily, "Yeah! This is the man Karo says tried to threaten her for trying to buy a--I dunno, it was some Shakespeare book or something, right, and she swears he just _had_ a first edition Dickens _lying around_."

"I saw a massive snake in there once, and I think Fell honestly would have let it bite me if I didn't tell him I just wanted to get out of the rain," says Omar, gravely.

Lockie takes a moment to register this information, and says, "Hey, wait---is this the same shop Heidi just lived in for a little while? Because the guy wouldn't sell her anything, but he was cool with her staying overnight for some reason?"

"Same bloke," says Artie, sniffing, from his blanket cocoon, "Also there's sometimes a Bentley parked outside, and a pointy looking man we're pretty sure is Fell's husband."

"Didn't see that," says Lockie, then frowns, "You guys seem to know an _awful lot_ about some bookstore in Soho."

"Fell's like a--" Omar pauses, hand stilling from where he's buried it in the blanket cocoon, presumably stroking Artie's hair, "what's the word? A cryptid?"

"Oh my god," says Lockie.

"No one knows how old he is, he's been around forever," says Artie, in a matter-of-fact tone, "and he's just--so weird. I'm pretty sure there's a Reddit forum and some twitter threads floating around about him."

Artie likely would have said more, but he chooses this moment to go very still and then scramble off the sofa and run full tilt towards the bathroom, hands clasped over his mouth. Which is just as well--Lockie has no idea what to do with any of this information.

"I feel like I should go give this back," says Lockie, once Omar has gently carried Artie back from his seventh toilet detour of the morning.

"I will _kill_ you," says Artie, hoarsely, "that's a fucking miracle you're holding there, mate."

"...we need to pay the rent--" Lockie points out, with no little amount of anxiety--it's only recently that he'd figured out how money does and doesn't work, and this is just. An awful slip-up, and he really doesn't want to be the one falling short on their share of the rent _again---_

Omar leans in and looks at the cover pensively, which has never meant good things. 

"We could try summoning a demon first though, right?" he says, "And also? I've been meaning to ask, what's with the coat?"

"In what universe is that a good idea?" Lockie demands, throwing his hands up, "The heel of my boot can't crush people for _real_ , Omar!"

"...what."

"Also, the coat is because you and Artie finally fucked last week," says Lockie, proudly, "Heidi and I had a bet going."

" _What._ "

* * *

I'm sure you know where this is going. 

Warlock "Lockie" Dowling may not have decided to summon a demon, but he sure didn't decide to Not Do it.

* * *

Heidi Jones is regarded largely as less woman and more Entity. This is a fact universally accepted---she is small and plump and wears calculatedly unthreatening sweaters, but she walks with purpose and has the air of someone that has seen some Shit.

When Lockie first met her, aged sixteen and balls-deep in an emo phase so intense he insisted that everyone call him _War_ , he was reminded abruptly and bizarrely of his old Nanny. Not that Heidi, with her artfully messy buns and (at the time) obsession with MCR, was anything like Nanny. It was more the general aura, kind of.

Which is why he isn't surprised when Heidi's only reaction to _"hey please help us with the incomprehensible numbers associated with this demon summoning ritual"_ is a long-suffering sigh.

Lockie, who is watering his plants (Camille, showing some worrying spotting on the leaves), waits for the question--the one he knows he should have asked in the beginning.

"What, exactly, is this summoning for?" Heidi asks, because she is also the only person he knows with any forethought.

"Well--hold on a second," he says, and leans in towards Camille, and hisses, with all the venom he can muster, "you're in _optimal_ conditions, you _just got_ that fancy new fertilizer, you have _no excuse_ for acting up like this---keep this up and you'll be relegated to the fucking bin, asshole, don't think I won't do it!"

"...are you threatening your plants again," says Heidi, sounding even more long-suffering

"Yep," says Lockie.

"Jesus," she says.

"It's an old habit!" he says, defensively, "and it helps relieve stress, okay, and they like people talking to them!"

He's honestly lucky he still doesn't call them Brother or Sister or Little Sibling of Indeterminate Gender. Thanks, Francis.

"I don't---the summoning?" she prompts.

Lockie is silent for a few moments, and then says, quietly, "You know how I showed up at your place last night?"

"And convinced me to get ugly drunk with you and cry while watching The Bachelorette," Heidi says, drily, "and called in sick and stumbled home looking like the manic pixie nightmare babe you are."

"...Yes," he says, and takes a deep breath, "I'm having---my dad called, yesterday. I'm officially disowned and cut off."

"Lockie--" says Heidi, softly.

"Got the call while I was at work and I _lost_ it in the back room," he tells her, "Mom wouldn't--she wouldn't even _talk_ to me."

"Jesus, that's awful--"

"Tell her about Fell!" Omar calls out from a room over, unaware that Lockie is ten seconds away from crying into Daniel the Fern.

Lockie takes a deep breath, and forces his voice into something less wet and cracked and vulnerable. 

"Also I bought this book from that Fell guy," he tells her, and she sighs.

"We aren't done talking about this, Lockie," she says.

"But will you help us with the fiddly witch bits?"

He waits, and waters Daniel the Fern (who is doing its absolute _most)_ until she says, "My uncle has notes on some summoning shit, let me call him. And send me the pages, there are precautions you can take so you don't lose a soul or something."

That last one is a sentence that heavily implies that Heidi has had experience with things that can take your soul, and may have seemed jarring coming from anyone else. From Heidi, it is not.

" _Nice_ ," he says, and hangs up before the call can get any more emotional.

After a pause, he turns back to Camille, who he imagines is drooping a little more than before.

"I'm sorry," he says, quietly, "it isn't your fault--let's move you somewhere else, you're probably just. Getting cramped."

And, feeling inexplicably small, he picks up the pot, and moves it to a spot by the window. 

* * *

When Crowley decided to be a Nanny for the Antichrist, he didn't expect to become half of a parental unit. 

After Warlock's eleventh birthday, he'd very carefully not thought of the boy--it was easy, at first, because Adam and the Apocawasn't happened immediately after, and then quite a bit more difficult because when you hold a baby in your arms and raise it, it's hard to Not Think About him.

He and Aziraphale had done their part, and fucked it up _spectacularly_. Anything more would be--

But he'd just be sitting around, sometimes, and he'd see someone do something obscenely irritating, and he'd be hit with the temptation to broaden his vowels into something much more Northern, and tell a small boy about how he'll crush everything under the heel of his boot someday. 

\---which is fucking absurd, he isn't, wasn't, the boy's _mother_. Nevermind that Harriet Dowling never spent any time with the boy, never mind that he and Aziraphale taught him to walk and to speak and to climb on top of the fridge and steal cookies and ride a bicycle and tie his laces and do little coin tricks and stick aforementioned coins to the sidewalk and watch gleefully as people got upset about it and---

Stupid. The boy likely doesn't even remember them.

* * *

**work of art** changed group name to **lemon time**

**dycicle:** what

 **omar:** what

 **work of art:** it's a joäk there's a meme or something

 **work of art:** like the cursive for demon looks like lemon? with a capital L? 

**warbaby:** explaining it makes it like ten times lamer artie im

 **dycicle:** yeah idc

 **dycicle:** heres what I got ok 

**dycicle:** screenshot(5).png

 **dycicle:** screenshot(6).png

 **dycicle:** precautions.dox

**warbaby** changed **omar** to **discount waluigi**

**discount waluigi:** WHY

 **warbaby:** SHAVE THE MOUSTACHE OFF YOU ABOMINATION 

**dycicle: …** anyway 

**dycicle:** my uncle says don't smudge the circle n u should be ok this seems like a p legit ritual

 **dycicle:** also dont touch the numbers all u need to do is do the runes nd incantation 

**discount waluigi:** cool now to fIND A VIRGIN WHO THE FUCK DO WE KNOW THATS A VIRGIN 

**warbaby:** actually that means someone whos never had their blood used in a spell or smth

 **discount waluigi:** why 

**discount waluigi:** do u know this

 **warbaby:** oh my old nanny told me when I was a kid lol

 **warbaby:** she told me virginity's a construct

 **discount waluigi:** what the f u c k lockie how old were u

 **warbaby:** idk like 8 i think

 **dycicle:** INCREDIBLE

 **warbaby:** why do we never ask heidi how she knows stuff??? this is a weird thing for ur uncle to just have on hand man why does he have a dos and donts pdf for demon summoning

 **dycicle:** idk man my mom's side of the family all have weird hobbies. My cousins fam straight up used to live by a literal prophecy book

 **warbaby:** what

 **discount waluigi:** what 

**discount waluigi:** wait wdym """"used to""""

 **dycicle:** idk apparently they ran out?? My uncle isn't from that part, he's just independently witchy. 

**warbaby:** god thats so valid

 **work of art:** hey guys unrelated but im looking thru the book and does the symbol for the antichrist look a little like the m-25 route or am i finally dying

 **work of art:** camera.png

 **dycicle:** what 

**warbaby:** what

 **discount waluigi:** holy shit babe 

* * *

"He looked familiar," Lockie says, as Omar gleefully shoves aside the sofa, to make room for Artie and his blood bowl. 

"Who?" Artie asks, muffled by his stuffy nose and the handkerchief he's tied around the lower half of his face to avoid snotting all over the little bowl of blood he's holding. The bowl, Lockie is bemused to note, is the Winnie the Pooh bowl he usually eats breakfast out of.

"Fell," he says pensively, drawing out some protective runes on his wrist with an eyeliner pencil, "I dunno, I just can't shake it. He looked really familiar."

"Karo and a lot of the people at uni talk about him a lot," Omar says, from where he has moved on to shoving the carpet aside. "Hey, this place is really dusty, should we vacuum?"

"...you think we should vacuum before we summon our demon," says Artie, slowly.

"But I've talked to Karo _once_ ," he says, "and I don't really swing with your uni crew, you guys are all I have here. I just--there was something about him."

Omar grunts, and says, "Can't be that you fancy him, your type is usually just weird assholes."

"Fell's kind of an asshole," Artie says. "And definitely weird."

Lockie is so outraged that he shakes off his pondering and glowers up at Omar. "What do you _mean_ my type is weird assholes?"

"Mason Riley," Omar says, flatly, "broke our door down because you tried breaking it off, and then threatened to out you about being a t---er, being a word I can't say because it's really rude but it starts with a T---at work."

"...alright, that was bad, but it was also _once---_ "

" _When was this?_ " Artie demands, looking aghast. 

"A month before you moved in, love," Omar says, and adds, "and that might have been once, but we still get calls from that bloke with the bone collection who was way too into dead bodies."

"I thought it was an aesthetic! Turns out he's just in a cult," Lockie says, mournfully. He dips his fingers into the blood---his own, in fact---and starts laying out the circle.

Artie rolls his eyes heavenward, and says, "Fell and his fuck-off snake and his no-sales policy in his _goddamn_ _bookshop_ sound right up your alley, then."

This is a statement that, for some reason, fills Lockie with such revulsion that he actually retches. He pictures Fell's face, the flyaway pale curls and his round, cherubic face, and picturing this in any sexual context actually turns his stomach. This is, he thinks, not a face he's attracted to, he just---

"Okay, Artie, hit up the incantation," says Omar, cheerfully. 

Artie obliges, reading out the Latin from the book with practiced ease, which handily betrays his posh roots.

\---it just looks familiar. Makes him think of gardens, though Fell doesn't look like the type to actually venture outside his bookshop, his face just reminds him of--

Something's happening. The circle's glowing, the runes laid out in careful strokes going from a dirty red to a blinding bluish glow. 

"Hey, fun fact," says Omar, eyeing the circle with growing trepidation, "I'm having second thoughts."

"Too late," says Artie bracingly, "Quick, have any of us thought of what to do once this bugger actually shows up?"

" _Francis_ " Lockie mutters, a dawning sort of realisation coming over him. He feels giddy with it.

"...what?"

Lockie wants to explain, wants to pause the circle blaring out white light in the shape of a language he doesn't know, painted into the floor in his own blood, wants to run back to the bookshop and ask Brother Francis---if it is Francis---when he had his teeth worked on, _they look really nice, I love your new displaced-from-the1940s look_ \---

But the circle is not going to stop just because Lockie Dowling thought at it, and it spits out a spindly-looking figure onto the dusty floor despite his misgivings.

* * *

"What," Aziraphale is saying, "will we do if we run into him again?"

"Nothing," says Crowley, a little venomously, "he probably won't recognise us. He probably doesn't even remember us, and even if he did---"

"Oh, my dear," says Aziraphale, softly, reaching out to touch him gently on the shoulder. Crowley nearly recoils, because he's just about _vibrating_ with feelings, but holds still and allows himself to have that comfort. 

"---and _even if he did,"_ says Crowley, "What would we do? Tell him we were only there because we thought he was the Antichrist? And ditched him immediately when we figured out he was the wrong boy?"

Aziraphale doesn't answer, looking stricken.

"But," he says, "You cared for him, Crowley---I cared for him---I'd go as far as to say we even loved him."

Crowley sniffs, and takes a long swig of his bottle of port. He sighs and looks up at the ceiling, uncaring if his sunglasses slide further down his nose, a feat only achieved when he is like this---loose-limbed and warm and alone with Aziraphale. He is upset and shaking with--with some emotion he has no interest in naming---but he is safe. 

"Fat lot of good it's done anyone," he mutters. 

"I'd like to think," Aziraphale says, "that we did good by him. When we were with him."

Crowley is silent. His chest aches.

"I tried," he says, hoarsely. "I tried to do good by him."

His chest is, right now, a very concentrated point of pain. He hasn't felt anything like this since--

"You did," Aziraphale murmurs, looking pensively at his glass, "I'm sure you did, my dear."

Crowley, who is by now quite certain that the space behind his ribs is on fire, clutches at his chest and says, "Ah---Angel, something's wrong."

"Crowley, you're glowing!" he says, alarmed. 

"Yes---fuck, I'd fucking _noticed,_ " he spits, and might have said more, but he feels himself get pulled aggressively, and then everything gets very blurry and very confusing.

Aziraphale, for his part, sees his companion just. Disappear from his position on his armchair.

" _Fuck_ ," he says, for what might be for second time since the dawn of the world.

* * *

The glowing calms down, and the leggy figure scrambles haphazardly to its feet.

"You think we can ask it to pay off our rent?" asks Artie, under his breath.

"There's a banishment incantation, right?" says Omar, faintly. He seems to have done a complete 180° on his attitude of current happenings and looks very much like he wants to climb out the fire escape. Which, Lockie is sure is broken anyway.

The demon---and the book says that it should be a demon--- straightens in a disoriented way, all limbs, and reveals itself to be. Well. Man-shaped. 

Man-shaped, with brilliant red hair that looks like it's been knocked askew by the fall, dressed in black from head to toe and wearing smoky black sunglasses.

"What the _bloody fuck,_ " he hisses, and Lockie thinks his tongue might be forked, "is this?"

"Um," says Omar, voice having climbed several pitches. "Hello. We've summoned you?"

"Are you _British?"_ says Artie, wide-eyed.

" _No_ , I'm not bloody British," says the demon, in a British accent. Then he looks down and says, "Is--is this a summoning? Have you lot fucking summoned me?"

"Uh," says Omar.

"This is unbelievable, I thought I asked him to burn all those books---" then, his face twists in a manner that indicates he's squinting at them. "You don't look much like witches."

"And youdon't look much like a demon," Artie points out, because he has no self preservation instinct. Being the only Indian kid in his Eton class has given him a backbone of steel. "Actually, you look familiar. Do you live around here?"

Now, one might be tempted to wonder why Lockie hasn't spoken since the demon, all pointy edges and smoky glasses, stumbled out of thin air. And one would be correct in wondering. 

Fresh off of the realization that Brother Fucking Francis---you know, the guy covered in dirt who once took Lockie out for a walk in the middle of the woods and convinced a deer to let a fucking five year old pet it---might be running a mildly infamous _bookstore of all things_ , Lockie's brain has decided to go careening down memory lane while his body is just standing in the living room with a demon. 

And it's because of this trip, this one foot he has in the memories of brighter times, when he had a garden and laughter and two people who spoke to him like he held the world in the palms of his hands, that he says what he is about to say next.

Or, perhaps it's because his dad called him yesterday while he was on a double shift at the shop, and told him that he was cut off. No looking back, marooned in England where he'd run away as soon as he could, because he'd needed to get away as soon as he could. 

Or, maybe he just _knows_. After all, when someone essentially raises you for eleven years, you have their faces kind of imprinted onto you. Took a while with Francis, but honestly, the lack of dirt threw him off. 

"---I don't grant _wishes_ ," the demon is saying, in an exasperated tone that's at once familiar and very different. New accent, Lockie thinks.

He--he?---doesn't appear to have noticed Lockie, which is fair. Artie's kind of in his face, and Omar's shuffled to a side in an attempt to protect him, but ends up looking terrified instead. 

"We've got these sigils to stop you from taking our souls, but honestly, I wouldn't mind losing that to get the toilet fixed--hasn't flushed in _months_ ," Artie says.

"What exactly," says the demon slowly, "am I going to do with your soul?"

"I dunno, eat it?"

"I'm in hell," says Omar.

"Nah," says the demon, and he grins sharply. And that's when Lockie's _sure_. "Hell's a lot damper. Overcrowded, too. All mildew and pus, you wouldn't like it."

Artie opens his mouth to say something else---probably something ill-advised---but is cut off by Lockie.

"Nanny?" he says, very quietly. 

And then the demon looks away from where he's looking bemused down at his roommates, and at him. And his face--

"Oh," says Nanny Ashtoreth, voice immediately turning softer, not quite the same as before, but close enough that Lockie wants to cry. " _Oh,_ Warlock? My boy, is that--"

He doesn't finish, because he suddenly has an armful of Lockie. 

"Don't cross the--nevermind," says Omar, from very far away.

"Oh, sweetheart," Nanny croons, and he sounds the same, except absolutely not. But well. It's been years. Nothing stays the same, really, and all that matters is that Nanny hugs him back. 

"You look different," Lockie tells him, wetly.

Nanny Ashtoreth, who has apparently swapped her severe tweed for leather jeans, barks out a laugh and holds him tighter.

* * *

"Did he just call the demon _Nanny?"_ asks Omar, faintly.

"This explains a lot about him," says Artie.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He pulls back, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand ---which, eugh, he's never been a pretty crier--- and is about to say something more grounded in reality; maybe _Nanny what the fuck are you doing in a demonic summoning circle_ or _digging the new aesthetic_ , or _do you want to sit down and explain to me what just happened._
> 
> Instead, what comes out is the thing that's been nagging at him all along, which rather brilliantly illustrates where Lockie's priorities lie;
> 
> "Is Brother Francis running a _bookstore?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly So fucken Floored by everyone who kudosed and commented on this holy Shit 
> 
> this is just. The most self-indulgent fic humanly possible and I'm so glad y'all like it hnbhbhbnnnn 
> 
> This chapter was a going to be split into two but I decided that I am not a Coward so u get this absolute fucking monster I'm so sorry 
> 
> enjoy!

Lockie spends a good few minutes snotting all over Nanny and his nice shirt---which, upon closer inspection is almost certainly from the women's section. This, somehow, makes his tears snottier.

Yes, he gets one (1) hug from his childhood caretaker and he ends up bawling onto his shoulder like a massive baby. Lockie is very conscious of how ridiculous he is as a person. 

"You're so much taller," Nanny tells him, and he snorts wetly. 

He pulls back, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand ---which, eugh, he's never been a pretty crier--- and is about to say something more grounded in reality; maybe _Nanny what the fuck are you doing in a demonic summoning circle_ or _digging the new aesthetic_ , or _do you want to sit down and explain to me what just happened._

Instead, what comes out is the thing that's been nagging at him all along, which rather brilliantly illustrates where Lockie's priorities lie;

"Is Brother Francis running a _bookstore?"_ he demands, eyes wide, "because I think I ran into him---he sold me this book--"

Nanny eyes the book in question, and groans loudly. It's very un-Nanny-like, all theatrics and rolled eyes and forked tongue. Well, the forked tongue seems pretty on-brand. 

"That blessed idiot," he hisses, looking wryly at Lockie like they're both sharing a joke. "I told him to burn all of those---that's one of the few real occult books in existence, and I guess he couldn't bloody resist hoarding them." 

All of this is said with a degree of fondness and familiarity that simultaneously warms Lockie's heart and confuses him, because it also indicates that this is typical behaviour for Francis. 

"I have so many questions," he says, blankly.

Nanny's face immediately loses most of its mirth, shifting into something much more grave. "Of course," he says, quietly, and that sounds much more like the Nanny he knew, "of course, I'll--"

And then he glances down at the carefully laid out circle that Lockie has ruined by tumbling in and clinging to him like a child, and raises an eyebrow. 

"First rule of summonings," he says, to the room in general, "Never break the circle." 

And he steps out of it, eyebrow twitching above his glasses like he's winking and somehow forgotten that he'd wearing sunglasses. His roommates both stare blankly.

"Hey, Lockie," says Omar, pleasantly, "What the _fuck?"_

Lockie clears his throat and gestures to Nanny, who has loped away and is now inspecting the plants (which make up roughly 50% of the living room) with a critical air. "This is my old Nanny, Lilith Ashtoreth," he says. 

Nanny makes a choking noise from where he's squinting at Herbert the English Ivy.

"This explains _nothing_ ," says Omar.

"Nanny, the short sniffly one's Artie, and the tall one with the ugly little moustache is Omar," he goes on, and is met by the usual noises of outrage. ("I'm not _short,_ " from Artie, and "Fuck you," from Omar.)

Nanny nods, and says, "Nice. Do you lot go around summoning demons often, then?"

"This is our first time, actually," Lockie says, earnestly.

"...Yeah, sounds about right," he says, and turns to look at Lockie. 

"You're right---you must have questions, and you deserve answers. Can we," Nanny pauses, and makes a complicated looking face, "can we talk?" 

It's around now that it dawns on Lockie the full enormity of recent events, which include but are not limited to _I just summoned a demon and the demon turned out to be my childhood Nanny_.

"Cool," he says, a little faintly, "I'll go break out the whiskey."

"NO," says Omar, whose mother hen instincts outweigh whatever fear he's feeling at the sight of a demon judging his dusty floor, "You're cut off! Heidi told us about last night!"

Lockie glowers at him. "Fine," he says, "I'm breaking out the emergency chamomile."

* * *

**work of art** changed group name to **what the fuck is going on**

**dycicle:** oh no

 **dycicle:** what happened 

**work of art:** so it worked

 **work of art** : ...actually I have no idea how to explain this but no one's dead so there's the bright side 

**discount waluigi:** APPARENTLY THE DEMON IS THE NANNY HE TALKS ABOUT

 **dycicle:** w

 **dycicle:** what the fuck does that mEAN

 **discount waluigi:** we don't kNOW

 **work of art:** they're in the kitchen having the emergency calming tea 

**work of art:** hey guys what if the demon is tricking lockie and we just fell for it 

**work of art:** and let him loose on the mortal plane or sth

 **discount waluigi:** UH

 **dycicle:** what the fuck you guys

 **discount waluigi:** in our defense 

**discount waluigi:** it seems pretty believable i mean

 **discount waluigi:** if u've met him

 **discount waluigi:** lockie, i mean

 **work of art:** god this would explain all of the times he's talked about satan or the apocalypse or whatever

 **dycicle:** if u shitheads don't eXPLAIN 

* * *

Lockie busies himself pulling out the mugs and rinsing them, settling himself into the calming process of making the tea. This is a habit that Heidi got him into when he was crashing on her couch, when breathing exercises weren't enough to quell his anxiety, and he's carried it with him over the years. Emergency Tea Talks are taken very seriously around here.

Nanny has folded himself and his long limbs into one of the mismatched chairs around their table, and eyes the towering pile of unwashed dishes and Sarah the Spiderplant Who Has Taken Over the Kitchen Counter.

He sets the mugs down. One is chipped and lumpy, having been made in a wine and pottery class he'd gone to one time. He gives this one to Nanny, who takes it with long fingers and does not comment on how lumpy it is.

"There's some things you should know," Nanny says, as Lockie settles down with his own mug, "and. 'Zira and I had a talk about this, about what we should tell you---or we tried, and I got pulled through spacetime and here we are."

"'Zira?" asks Lockie.

"I'm getting there," says Nanny, patiently. He takes a sip of the tea and makes a face. "How much sugar did you _put_ in this?"

"Uh--"

"You take after him," he says, with a sort of disgusted fondness that might have been funny if Lockie weren't so confused, "anyway---'Zira. Aziraphale. I'm getting to that."

"Okay?"

Nanny takes a deep breath, and puts down his mug. Pulls off the sunglasses, which is a movement that genuinely shocks Lockie more than anything else---he's never seen Nanny without them, in all the eleven years he'd been attached to her skirt with grubby little hands. 

His eyes are golden, and have slits for pupils. They look like they belong on a snake. They also, bafflingly, look nervous. 

_Oh,_ he thinks. _Demon_.

"My name," says the demon that raised him, looking rather like he's going to chew on his nails at any moment, "is _Crowley_. Or Anthony J. Crowley, depending on who you ask. But really, it's Crowley."

"Oh," says Lockie, wide-eyed. He flounders for a minute, and blurts out, "What's the J for?"

Nanny---er, Crowley, blinks, seemingly thrown off. He opens his mouth, closes it's and says, faintly, "Just a J, really. Didn't think that one through. Thought a J would sound cool, at the time."

This is a statement so profoundly ridiculous that Lockie only nods sagely, and says, " _God_ , that's valid."

Crowley snorts, and then smiles at him warmly. That looks the same as before, if nothing else. It's brimming with affection, and Lockie immediately feels very at home. 

"Anyway, before I tell you anything, I need you to know, Warlock," Crowley says, leaning forward and cupping his hands over Lockie's, "I need you to know that I--- _we_ cared about you. _Do_ care about you--both me and Aziraphale---er, that's Francis---"

"Oh," says Lockie, unsure if he understands. 

"I'm a demon," says Crowley, "and Aziraphale--Francis---is an angel. And twenty-two years ago, Hell assigned to me a very important delivery."

* * *

Aziraphale and Crowley accidentally started moving in together roughly three months after the Apocalypse Didn't Happen.

This was not a conscious decision, but something that happened a little like Crowley claims Fall happened--they sauntered vaguely into it. 

One night, Crowley was asking Aziraphale if he could stay over (and miracling the bed into being fit for real actual sleeping) and the next thing they knew, all of Crowley's plants were in the bookshop and they were accidentally wearing each others' coats. And, once they'd got their heads out of their own asses and gotten together after six thousand years of bullshitting around it, there was no point in changing the fact.

The point here being; for the better part of six thousand years, Aziraphale and Crowley had spent their time apart. They would, inexorably, meet like two very stupid celestial bodies caught in orbit and then part for another century or so. Nevermind that these moments, these nights spent drinking or seeing plays or feeding ducks or saving/being saved from the threat of discorporation are the highlight of their millenium---the fact remains that the past few years are the most time they've spent together, aside from their decade-long stint as Brother Francis and Ms. Ashtoreth.

This is different, though. Back then, they were still Enemies. Opposite sides. Now, they are their own side.

And so, the inside of Aziraphale's head---the screaming, eldritch part with innumerable eyes and six wings and wheels upon wheels and the golden light of creation caught in its teeth---has very sensibly removed HEAVEN from its long-appointed place of HOME and gleefully replaced it with CROWLEY.

Angels are, at heart (if they've bothered to have a heart, that is), creatures who can and will desecrate anything in their part for fucking with anything categorized as HOME or THEIRS. 

For example:

1) The angels who absolutely lost their shit once Lucifer suggested something they didn't like and tattled to mommy, and got him punted the fuck out of heaven.

2) Aziraphale and Crowley stopping an entire apocalypse so that they could go on being hedonistic idiots together on earth

3) Aziraphale summoning a flaming sword using the sheer worry and rage inside him, and marching down the streets with it in plain sight, using the angry screaming part of his brain to locate HIS and CROWLEY and HOME, fully intent on smiting whoever _dared---_

I'm sure you see where this is going.

* * *

"So," Warlock says, eyebrows by his hairline, "You were only accidentally taking care of me?"

He's abandoned his tea, Crowley notes, and it's long since gone cold. Warlock listened to the tale with wide eyes, scraping turquoise polish off his nails absently.

His hair has, by now, unravelled from its french braid so thoroughly that it is currently barely a suggestion of a french braid. The fondness Crowley feels is so vast that it nearly chokes him.

"No," he says, a little desperately, "Well, yeah, but listen. We cared--- _do_ care about you. I---don't--"

Warlock just looks at him for a while, and says, slowly, "Well, this explains all the lullabies. And that stuff about how I'll crush my enemies at the end of everything or whatever."

"...you remember that?" 

"It's literally my earliest memory," Waflock informs him. It occurs to Crowley now that he looks less upset than he'd expected. In fact, his face is veering towards amusement. "Literally all of my formative memories are of you two, somehow."

Crowley feels the sudden urge to slam the sunglasses back onto his face, because he's rather certain he's going to cry. He, of course, immediately murders the tears before they happen, but it must be noted that he very nearly did.

"...right, sorry about that," Crowley says.

At this, Warlock blinks, and actually frowns. Which, Crowley now realizes, he has not done until now.

"Don't...be?" he says, as though he is carefully choosing his words, unsure of what he's trying to say, "I--okay, it was weird, but I didn't figure out it was weird until a few years later and I casually mentioned stuff to people and they'd be like _there is no way a sane adult would say that_ but like, also there's no way a sane adult would name their child Warlock so really that ship sailed years ago," he pauses, and says, "Don't be sorry? You and Francis were--"

He pauses again, and purses his lips. 

"---you remember my parents, and what they were like. That--that kinda got worse over the years," Warlock says, finally, "I have a lot to thank you both for."

Fuck, his eyes are stinging now.

"Oh," he says, and it comes out choked-up and strangled. 

"Although," says Warlock, "this means my parents weren't really my parents---if I was baby A, then doesn't that mean that this Antichrist kid ended up with my biological parents?"

"Er--"

"---which doesn't really matter, I guess," he goes on, with a finality to his tone, "because I know the people who raised me, and one of them is sitting right here."

" _Oh_ ," says Crowley again, and promptly starts leaking from his eyes. 

"Aw, Nanny Ash," Warlock says, grinning affectionately, and reaches forward to grasp Crowley's hand. 

"Shut it," says Crowley, squeezing his eyes closed, "I'm sorry--about--"

He never gets to finish, however, because the tall one from earlier, the one with the scraggly little moustache, pokes his head into the cramped little kitchen, looking frazzled. "Sword!" he yells, wild-eyed.

"Dude, teatime rules," says Warlock, sounding aggrieved, "we knock! When we do the tea talk!"

"There's a--"

"LOCKIE," someone shouts from the next room, "I THINK SOMEONE'S HERE TO SEE YOU---THIS SEEMS LIKE A YOU PROBLEM."

Crowley feels, rather than uses any of his senses to ascertain, the familiar presence that his hindbrain---the part that's still on fire and hurtling through the void in a way that doesn't in any way resemble Sauntering---has learned to recognize wherever he goes. 

"Aziraphale," he says, blinking. _Oh_ , he feels angry.

"...cool, I'll make another cup of tea," says Warlock.

* * *

Aziraphale finds himself in the doorway of a very small apartment. He did not knock. The door, sensing that something very bad would happen to it if it did not get out of his way _immediately,_ had sort of just swung open to avoid becoming a pile of splinters. 

The air smells thick with occult workings, clogged with brimstone and smoke and blood and the peculiar watery peanut aftertaste that happens when someone had successfully convinced reality to bend for them, for a while. Aziraphale also has this right now, because when he'd got past the shock of Crowley just disappearing, he'd proceeded to get so angry that his flaming sword just happened in his hand.

Belief is a powerful thing, you'll find. 

It's never occurred to Crowley that a car should not behave like the Bentley does---he thinks that having minimal driving knowledge and a car that occasionally takes over is just part for the course. Lockie Dowling grew up on stories that tasted of hellfire and power, and was raised by two very powerful celestial beings, and some part of him has therefore never registered that, perhaps, angels and demons and magic and fairies and the like are _not_ real. He summoned his old Nanny simply because it's never occurred to him that the ritual required a seasoned magic user (which he is not) and not, say, three university-aged people with nothing better to do on a Sunday.

Similarly, Aziraphale got so profoundly enraged that the thought of Crowley getting dragged through spacetime after they'd gone through so much to carve out the peace in their life, that for a moment he'd forgotten to be a soft little man running a bookshop--- and instead recalled what it was like to be newly-made, newborn stars caught in his hair and named a Warrior from the get-go.

Guardian of the Eastern Gate---Aziraphale was built for protection. And right now, _boy_ does he know it.

So he has a sword in his hand, and surveys the scene with cold eyes. 

The living room is rather cluttered, all plant-pots and furniture shoved by the walls, and there is a blood-circle right in the middle. There is also, he notes, quite a lot of dust on the carpet, which has also been pushed aside. 

The young man who first sees him takes one look at him and bolts. 

Aziraphale turns to the other one, who is much smaller and appears to be swaddled in a blanket. "Where is he?" he asks, in a tone that might be called _terrifyingly pleasant_. 

"Uh," says the blanket cocoon curled up on the shoved-aside sofa, that might be a boy, "LOCKIE, I THINK SOMEONE'S HERE TO SEE YOU." He pauses, and eyes Aziraphale for a moment, before adding, "THIS SEEMS LIKE A YOU PROBLEM."

" _No,_ " says Aziraphale, nearing the end of his patience, "I meant the _demon--_ "

The doorway that the first lad had stumbled to is now occupied by Crowley.

"Zira--"

"My _dear,_ " says Aziraphale, weak with relief---rushing forward and looking him over with a critical eye. No worse for wear, just a bit sooty and dusty. His sunglasses are crooked, like he's hastily slammed them onto his face.

"Er--"

"Wait," says the blanket cocoon from behind him, "aren't you the bloke from the bookstore? Fell?"

"Oh my god," says the other one, "what the _fuck_ is going on."

Aziraphale turns to them and says, lowly, "And as for _you--_ do you have _any idea_ what you've done?"

Because they don't seem like they have harmed Crowley. In fact, Crowley's cradling a rather chipped and lumpy mug of tea in his hands. This does not seem to be a malicious ritual summoning or sacrifice of any sort--Aziraphale does not know of many cults that give their summoning subjects tea.

"About that," starts Crowley.

"DOES THAT MEAN YOU'RE THE _BOOKSHOP TWINK_ ," says the blanket boy, looking at Crowley with accusatory eyes.

"I'm the _what_ ," says Crowley, justifiably affronted.

"The bookshop twink's Lockie's Nanny," says the other one, blankly. 

This gives Aziraphale pause, and he squints at him. "Who's--"

Another head pokes out from between Crowley and the tall one and says, sunnily, "Brother Francis! I made you tea."

"What on--- _Warlock?_ " says Aziraphale, who's very thoroughly lost the plot of whatever's happening and thus also forgotten to pretend he doesn't know the boy.

"I prefer Lockie," he tells him, grinning widely. "And I hear you're going by Aziraphale these days? Nice sword, but I think you're scaring the plants."

"I--" he looks at Crowley, who shrugs helplessly.

"Come on in, I've made you tea," says the boy apparently called Lockie, gesturing to the kitchen.

"Right," says Aziraphale, faintly.

* * *

**discount waluigi:** FELL'S HERE

 **discount waluigi:** HEIDI THE FELL GUY FROM THE BOOKSHOP JUST SHOWED UP

 **discount waluigi:** HE HAS A SWORD HOLY FUCK

 **work of art:** how is it just constantly on fire 

**work of art:** magic??

 **dycicle:** w h a t

 **discount waluigi:** THE YELP REVIEWS FOR HIS SHOP DID NOT MENTION A FLAMING SWORD

 **dycicle:** im so confused will one of u pls fucking Explain

 **work of art:** so unrelated but I'm reading this book ok and we?? just cast a spell that apparently needs a "great source of arcane power" did I miss something

 **discount waluigi:** i need a fUCKING NAP

* * *

Aziraphale is, before he knows it, ushered into a cramped little kitchen barely big enough to house the table he is sat at, and given a mug of tea. 

"It's raspberry," says Lockie, "we're out of chamomile and I think Omar's going to need the lavender, he looks like he needs a stress-nap."

Aziraphale looks at the mug. It has the words _GRL PWR_ on it in white, against the hot pink of the mug itself.

He turns to Crowley and says, "My dear, what on _Earth_ is going on?"

"You sold the boy a bloody spellbook and he and his friends accidentally summoned me," Crowley tells him, amused. Then, he says, "Wait, why the Heaven were you lot summoning demons in the first place?"

They both turn to Lockie, who grins sheepishly. "I was really, really sad?" he ventures. 

Both Aziraphale and Crowley give him identical unimpressed looks.

"Someone suggested it and it seemed like a good idea?" he tries again.

"...don't do that again," says Crowley.

"Worked out fine this time," says Lockie, "but sure."

Aziraphale, who is getting the picture, says, "And you've told him everything?"

"Yep," says Crowley, popping the _p_. 

He looks at Warlock---Lockie---and says, "I'm very sorry, my dear boy."

"I don't get why you guys keep apologizing," he says, exasperated.

"Well--"

"You were super fucking weird," Lockie says, "but you guys are the whole reason I am who I am now. I'm pretty sure things would be gone---really different for me if it weren't for you. Self discovery-wise, I mean."

"Oh?" says Crowley.

"Yeah I'm pretty, uh," he wrinkles his nose and says, "fluid? Genderweird? Genderwobbly? Manic pixie nightmare babe? You know, how you said you're sometimes a man and sometimes a woman--"

"---and sometimes a snake---"

"---god, I wish I could be a snake," Lockie sighs, wistfully.

"That's wonderful!" says Aziraphale, clapping his hands together. "I'm _so_ happy for you!"

"Because...I want to be a snake?" 

"...no, the other thing," he says, and he means it so very much, "I think it's lovely that you've found yourself and accepted it. Just _look_ at you, my dear."

This prompts a host of expressions on Lockie's face. He appears to be wheeling through several emotions at once, and seems to be thoroughly confused by it, and there are tears gathering in his eyes. 

"Thanks," he says, thickly, eyes brimming. He puts down his mug and wipes at them roughly.

"Do you go by he, or?" asks Crowley, looking concerned.

"Anything goes," says Lockie, wetly, "I'm usually a they, but these days I'm man-shaped, you know? But on Tuesdays I do a, uh---a _routine_ and I'm a girl then. Ask me in a week and maybe it'll be different, uh."

"He right now, girl on Tuesdays, got it," says Crowley, and Lockie laughs.

There is a companionable silence for a few moments, then, and Aziraphale makes use of it by taking a sip of his tea. It is _very_ sweet. But nice. Good temperature, too.

"I'm sorry for being so rude back at the bookshop," says Aziraphale, who has never before apologised for being rude at his bookshop, "I honestly wasn't expecting to see you here---last we'd checked, you and your family moved back to America."

"They did," Lockie says, and he looks shifty for a moment before saying, "Wait, you checked in on me?"

"For a year or two, yeah," says Crowley, "How'd you end up back in England anyway? And--" here he pauses, and looks around the kitchen---with its table held steady by a hasty book shoved under one leg, the sprawling spiderplant, the frankly ridiculous pile of unwashed dishes, the sticky note on the fridge proclaiming that they were out of flour and pasta _,_ and says, "--and no offense, this isn't exactly, er. What we'd imagined you'd be living like. Why the shitty flatshare? Decided to strike out on your own, have you?"

Lockie sighs, and immediately looks much more exhausted. Aziraphale realises, now, that there are quite a few rings under his eyes.

"Kinda," he says, quietly, "I booked it away from home as soon as I could, and I guess I chose england because I already had citizenship? And also because I missed it, of course. Ended up in Soho because I found an old friend of mine and I crashed on her couch for, like, a year before I could afford to move out into my own place with these assholes."

Aziraphale frowns. 

"Why," he asks, gently, "did you feel the need to leave home--as fast as you could?"

"Uh," Lockie says, and looks away from him and into his mug of tea, "lots of things, I guess. Dad wanted me to do something political and I wanted to do environmental science, and also I wasn't--"

He stops, and swallows, looking miserable. 

"It's alright, dear," he says, "You don't have to tell us if you don't want to."

Lockie sighs, "No, I-- I want to. Dad figured out I was into dudes real quick and he was really bad about that for a long time and it wasn't _great_ but one Halloween I went to a party all dressed up--god, that was such a _stupid_ move, but I just wanted to feel-- _nice_ and not this macho man-dude son he wanted me to be--and they both _flipped out really bad_ , so I decided I'd run." 

Silence. Aziraphale _very_ carefully does not get angry, and he can sense Crowley attempting very hard to do the same. He is, after all, the Kindly Brother Francis, and Kindly Brother Francis does not manifest wings and go smite people with a flaming sword.

"So, uh, yeah," he says, into his cold tea, "that's why. It's cool, though, I'm saving up to pay for uni and they've straight-up disowned me now---dad called last night and I guess that's that."

Aziraphale puts down his mug, and pushes away from the table. 

"Uh, Franc--"

The rest of that is muffled by Aziraphale, because he has taken Lockie by the shoulders and buried him in a hug. 

"I'm so, so sorry," he says, quietly, as Lockie goes still and then melts into it, "You deserve so much better, my darling child."

"I knew your parents were rotten," says Crowley, incredulously, "but... _hnnnngk_." He makes an inarticulate noise of rage, and frustration.

"B-big mood," Lockie says, into Aziraphale's waistcoat. His shoulders are trembling, and his words come out muffled and shaky.

Aziraphale strokes his back, and murmurs, "If it's any consolation, I'm very proud of you. You're so _very_ brave, for daring to come out here and try to live on your own. Braver, even, to do it as yourself."

"Me, too," says Crowley, gravely, "You've turned out great, little hellspawn."

Lockie giggles onto the waistcoat, which is quite damp now. He pulls away and wipes at his face, smiling. "Thank you both," he says, "for being there for me when I was a kid. I know that was part of your galaxy-brain anti-apocalypse plan, but like. You didn't have to do the _kissing my scratches better_ or the _reading me bedtime stories_ and _listening to me talk about Sailor Moon for three hours straight_ part. But you did."

"But we did," Crowley agrees.

"Because we love you," Aziraphale says, warmly.

Lockie beams at them. "I love you too, Brother Francis, Nanny Ash," he says.

The three of them sit, for a moment, and the universe seems a little bit more Right, somehow. The screaming, many-eyed thing that serves as Aziraphale's hindbrain is considering adding something Else to the HOME category.

 _Not yet,_ he tells it, primly, _give it a week._

"Now," says Crowley, because he has had quite enough of this emotional vulnerability business for the next century or so, "tell me about your plants. And your _routine_ , don't think I missed that part."

* * *

**warbaby:** its cool!! everything is cool and nanny says he's gonna order takeout!!

 **dycicle:**???

 **warbaby:** he was gonna take me out to the ritz but i told him it was my turn to cook

 **work of art:** the rITZ????

 **dycicle:** im 

**warbaby:** also why have u n omar locked yourself in the bedroom it's ok to come out???? 

**discount waluigi:** idk man I'm Stressed and also that dude had a FLAMING SWORD i need a nap

 **warbaby:** its ok I made him put it in the umbrella stand!!!!! also i made u lavender uwu

 **dycicle:** th

 **dycicle:** the umbrella stand 

**work of art:** LOCKIE THIS PLACE IS FLAMMABLE

 **warbaby:** they're magic, guys

 **dycicle:** so theyre demons? is that what's going on, u summoned a demon and it happened to b the one that raised u,

 **warbaby:** yeah except Francis is an angel and his name is aziraphale n also a. z. fell

 **dycicle:** wow,,,

 **dycicle:** i have met that man and lemme tell u there's nothing angelic about his fucking business practices

 **dycicle:** tell him he's a bitch and i Will defeat his opening hours 

**discount waluigi:** heidi what part of FLAMING SWORD did u not UNDERSTAND 

* * *

Lockie, who is introducing Crowley to his fledgeling windowsill herb garden, checks his phone again and says, "---oh, Francis? My friend Heidi says you're a bitch?"

Aziraphale blinks, nonplussed. "Pardon?"

"A lot of my friends think you're a cryptid," he tells him, very seriously, "And also they hate your business hours."

"That's rather the point," says Crowley, grinning toothily.

Lockie sniggers, and turns back to Crowley. He is, Crowley notes, still a little spindly, as though at twenty-five, he's still figuring out what to do with all of the excess limb he has. This is an observation that many people have made about Crowley himself. He, however, has the excuse that he's a snake who later became person-shaped. Lockie does not.

"I've been trying to keep this batch alive, but honestly, the rosemary's being in _credibly_ bitchy and I have no idea how to get it to listen to me," he's saying.

"I've found that creative threats often help," offers Crowley, helpfully, "And also making them watched their failed comrades die. Always a winner, that."

" _Crowley,_ that's hardly good gardening advice," says Aziraphale, from where he's miracling the sofa back into place. If it is suddenly less dingy and torn-up and patched, then that's hardly his fault. These things happen, he supposes.

The floor is also less bloody by the time he's done. And less dusty.

"I do the yelling," Lockie says, flushing, "but I feel really bad for hurting their feelings and then I kinda just...say sorry?"

Crowley blinks at him. There is a great deal of emotion in his chest.

"Of _course_ you do," he mutters.

"This one's Camille, by the way, and I'm honestly surprised I haven't killed her yet," Lockie goes on, "but I have hope."

* * *

Here's what's going to happen, in case you were wondering, which I'm sure you are. This is, after all, something none of the parties involved expected, least of all you. But I can tell you, it was going to happen anyway. 

I rarely plan everything out, whatever anyone else might say. The universe is too vast for me to manipulate on such a minute level anymore. 

But this? This sunlit afternoon in a cramped living room being surreptitiously cleaned out by an angel, while the boy that Wasn't the Antichrist shows a demon the spotting on his plant's leaves? This was always going to happen. I wasn't sure about the specifics, though, _that_ was all them.

So. Here's what's going to happen, not because I planned it out, but because I know these particular creations very well:

Lockie Dowling is going to show the demon Crowley every single one of his plants, and tell him their names, and accidentally refer to some of them as Sister or Brother or Sibling of Indeterminate Gender (" _thanks, Francis_ "). The Principality Aziraphale is going to fix the mould in the wallpaper, and the termite problem in the second bedroom. And make it so the toilets will flush. 

Omar will drink his tea and take a nap. He will, while shuffling out for aforementioned tea, find that everything in the living room is back in place and feel a little less anxious.

Crowley will order Indian food from a nearby place, because Lockie and Artie insist it's the best thing ever. They leave some for Omar. Aziraphale adores it, and suspects he's found a new favourite place.

Crowley will until Lockie is looking away to tell Camille, on no uncertain terms, that she'd better shape up or _there will be consequences._

They will give Lockie several promises that they'll see him soon, _we promise, little hellspawn,_ and leave late into the night. They will also ask him about his Tuesdays.

On Tuesday night, they will go to a queer establishment not too far from the bookshop and watch their lovely little girl dance a frankly stupendous routine with another girl just as tall as her. Afterwards, they will gather her into their arms and tell her how _proud_ they are. They will take her to dinner, and she will demand they tell her more stories.

Lockie Dowling will not stop feeling the sting of parental rejection, but this will make it seem less awful. Aziraphale and Crowley, his Nanny and Francis, will encourage every bizarre little idiosyncrasy he has, even the obsession she will soon have with taxidermy. 

Lockie will, at some point, off-handedly mention meeting a strange maggoty man who certainly _wasn't_ an archaeologist in Iran, and how she told him that he smells like poo. Crowley will laugh himself sick and very nearly choke on an eclair.

They will have a fight, eight months down the line, about Lockie's hypothetical university fees. His godparents-- " _yes, that's what we are, no, it's not legal, no, you can't change my mind, angel"_ \---want to pay for it, but the idea of it makes Lockie chafe and get incredibly upset for reasons they can't articulate. 

The compromise that the three of them decide on is that their Godfathers will pay for the therapy Lockie very much should have, and help them get a better job. If the job offer that will come later than night is conveniently timed and very well-paid, there's nothing anyone can do about it, is there?

They _cannot_ convince her to move out of the apartment, though. She will, however, find that the landlord keeps forgetting to take their rent. She will almost be exasperated, but it's through the bubbling joy of being loved.

On a completely unrelated note, around a year down the line (read: long enough not to make Lockie suspicious) Thaddeus Dowling will cross paths with a particularly plucky journalist who will go on and reveal years worth of corruption and put him behind bars for a good while. This will make Lockie feel strange and conflicted, and not at all suspicious.

Aziraphale and Crowley will be very smug, and will convince themselves that it is for the greater good and not because they were very, _very_ angry.

Here's what will happen:

Lockie Dowling will know that they are loved. Which, they've always known, to be honest. It's just that now, Crowley and Aziraphale know it too, and know to show it.

Everything else will come as it will.

For now, they are all still where we left them. 

"So, Aziraphale," says Lockie, mouth unsure around the new name, "did you _actually_ wear fake teeth for the _whole ten years?_ "

Crowley snorts.

They'll be fine, I promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am So attached to these ocs btw so have some facts that didn't make it in bc no one cares but they exist bc I CARE SO MUCH;
> 
> 1) Heidi is a second cousin or something of Anathema. She's a trans girl and is witch-adjacent, in that she knows magic but isn't particularly interested in it beyond the occasional spell to keep herself awake when she needs to. 
> 
> She and Lockie met after he moved to America, on one of his holidays in England after he snuck out into a bar with an awful fake ID.
> 
> 2) Artie decides to pursue witchcraft and drags Omar into many more absolutely bonkers situations. Lockie might or might not get dragged along. Who knows. 
> 
> 3) Omar will, at some point, almost certainly shave his moustache off. He's just v proud of it bc he's trans and that's the first facial hair he grew, ok. He's doing his best.

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley: IM GOING TO DETATCH MYSELF BECAUSE THERE'S NO WAY HE REMEMBERS ME
> 
> Also Crowley: *sobbing* m-my bABY


End file.
